I wasted my time and money on Brink

I should have known it would be just alright. That's what Brink is, middle of the road, luke warm and all the various other terms that mean some good and some bad.

Sure the customization is good and I can pick the outfit I wanted for my character to wear but by the time I can get anything really interesting I'm already done the game. Sure I can play the game online to further unlock more shiny bobbles by grinding out experience but I really just don't want to. I can't bring myself to deal with the frustration of getting my ass kicked by fifteen year old cocky pricks like I'm playing a clunky cartoony shooter akin to Quake. And all just so I can finally get some pants that are badass.

If the game didn't have the shitty weaponry and terrible shot registry I would be more inclined to put some hours into it. More specifically what I mean by shitty shot registry is it seems, that even with the strongest weapons it is still annoyingly hard to kill the enemy. I find myself peppering bodies with a giant light machine gun and on the rare occasion when my bullets don't miss they seemed to have no effect. This ineffectiveness has me convinced that it doesn't matter which weapon I chose because I they all feel like nerf guns.

Further more Brink uses that god awful engine they made for Doom 3. Instead of feeling like a bad ass sniping soldier of carnage I am turned into a child who is trying to paint skinny bodies with my fingers. With out delving too much into my fanaticism about 3rd person shooter engines I'll just say that I like when my gun shoots where I aim it and not in a random pattern around where my cross-hairs lay.

When it comes to engine consideration all designer should realize the true reason that the Call of Duty series does so well: your gun shoots precise powerful bullets.

With the aforementioned shortcomings to the game-play you now understand why I would not want to spend time grinding in this game. I don't want to farm xp by playing through levels where the main frustration is the shit you're shooting at isn't dying.

The worst part of the non-delivery of this game is the promise and potential it has. The different classes and abilities to provide you team mates with buffs is a fresh a cool aspect to employ in an FPS. Picking from three different weight classes that have different weapon and mobility options can really split levels into different experiences. The heavy guys get the most weapons but the skinny guys can climb onto rooftops that no-one else can reach. The middle guys are a marriage of both aspects lessened respectively.

This could have save the game if, when you actually did get on the rooftop, you weren't using the crappy guns that aren't proficient at killing. The same goes for the heavy characters there's not much use taking a big machine gun and walking slow just so you can spray bullets all over you enemies if you actually are just missing and shooting the wall behind said enemy because your bullets are too inaccurate.

In the end Brink is all icing and not enough cake.

RIP poffo

"Macho Man" Randy Savage is dead. As one of the greatest wrestlers OF ALL TIME had a heart attack at the wheel of his jeep and crossed over a cement meridian and through on coming traffic to hit a tree more than just a legend was leaving us. A piece of my child hood went away with that man.

His real name was Randy Poffo and before he was the most electrifying man in sports entertainment he was a decorated baseball player. In the position of catcher went as far as getting signed to the St. Louis Cardinals.

With his many years in the WWE and WCW he won 20 titles. But by far his greatest accomplishment in life was playing Bonesaw in Spiderman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHU7NolJuZ8&feature=related.

Thank you Mr. Poffo you will immortalized in the grandest way possible... in my minecraft world

Me and Mike watching a minecraft video and talking about it

After tweeting mike my latest creation in minecraft. I have found a very minecraft friendly font (arcade).

superdalebot

a message from mine craft http://j.mp/iwUBkX

he suggested a new project.

_Rades

@superdalebot So here's a new Minecraft challenge for you:http://youtu.be/QdSBHXgWv7w

superdalebot

@

@_Rades soooo my challenge is to get the nerdiest sounding voice of all time

_Rades

@superdalebot You unlocked that achievement years ago

superdalebot

@_Rades hahahahaha "you see this door it's forty blocks tall." hahaha

superdalebot

@_Rades thats were we keep the adult beverages hahahahahahaha

_Rades

@superdalebot Hahaha it must have taken him so long to do

superdalebot

@_Rades just imagine how long it took him to measure his entire belongings in inches

_Rades

@superdalebot "Honey what are you doing, you doing some renos?" "No dear I have to accurately build our house in a computer game."

superdalebot

@_Rades his nerdy southern accent is amazing

superdalebot

@_Rades haha he even has water coming out of the faucets

_Rades

@superdalebot YEAH haha now that is attention to detail

superdalebot

@_Rades this guy is the bob ross of minecraft

superdalebot

@_Rades if they crossed katamari and minecraft I would die of nerd

_Rades

@superdalebot You should make a giant room somewhere and create a Katamari scene/diorama

superdalebot

@_Rades put a lot of effort and time, time and more time into it hahaha

Mike: Oh my god you absolutely destroyed the server hahaha it is going fucking nuts

Dale: your welcome hahahaha

Mike: I'll let it rest for now haha

Dale: haha I was like woops both portals are in the same spot. Cool it's a trampoline. then it was like No flying on this server BOOT

Mike: The game froze and then I tabbed to the server program and it was like A MILLION LINES OF CODE FLYING BY AT LIGHTSPEED.

Mike: I think I have Snow Crash now

Add ons and the mishaps therein

If your familiar with what an add on is in a video game then you already know they are a brimming pot of awesomeness gold heralded by a rad leprechaun. If you don't know I'll explain it.

An add on is when a third party basically designs something to add to a game with a small downloadable file. They craft a piece of code to change the way your play the game usually by making it more convenient and simple. Or sometimes they just add something to make the game play more involved.

In mine craft Mike has downloaded a few of these that not only make the game easier but more interesting and in some ways hilarious.

Specifically there is an add on that has added an rpg aspect to you in game skills. You can level up your mining and eventually you will get two ore from digging one square. In dirt and sand you will find glowing dust which you can craft into light blocks.

I was well familiar with the previously stated skills. Well I should be since I've dug a million blocks or so and leveled up my mining to well past 200. Something has changed though. The last update to the game and add ons now has secondary skills on weapons and tools.

When you are holding an item you click the right mouse and it readies your skill and when you press left mouse it unleashes it. For instance if your using an arrow it makes a flame arrow that lights enemies on fire causing more damage. If your Mike and your using a sword and testing it on me it makes your sword deliver a wound that keeps causing damage after the initial strike. Then you keep getting hurt and Mike just stands and laughs at you and you die like a dog in the street.

More interesting than that though is what it happens when you ready your shovel. You'd expect something not entirely awesome because after all it's just your digging tool. Something magical does happen though. THE BEST DIGGING THEMED ANIME COMES TO LIFE BEFORE YOU VERY EYES. YOU ARE INFUSED WITH SPIRAL ENERGY AND YOU UNLEASH THE GIGA DRILL BREAKER and then well you dig a whole bunch really fast like.

If you don't know why I just freaked out then you are not familiar with Gurren Lagann and your missing out on one of the best digging themed anime every drawn.

If this is you, stop reading this, stop playing Minecraft stop whatever your doing and go get your grubby meat hooks on Gurren Lagann and watch it in full then come back. No I said stop reading.

Did you watch it? If no screw off and go watch it.

Ok now that you've watched the complete series of Gurren lagann I would first like to say your welcome. Yes it was beautiful and I know it changed your life with it's majesty. I do agree the fact that a Minecraft add on referenced this amazingness does make it the best add on in the history of add ons. Now lets just take a minute to have some yoga breathes and really really appreciate how splendid Gurren Lagann was.

Ok once your done crying about how beautiful life is go play mine craft some more and dig the shit out of everything.

I have built myself a monument... or two

Since my last post I have been doing odds and ends and screwing around in minecraft. I realized that since all my digging is now connected I don't really want to go off on a wild tangent tunnel and loose my sense of closure and accomplishment from having all my bases attached. Naturally I decided to improve my already totally awesome bases.

One way I could do that is to dig out my sun shaft a bit more. Actually a lot more.

The cathartic digging forever was interrupted by that my inventory concerns. About five minutes after anyone starts minecraft they realize they fill up their inventory with annoying rock they've dug. Since there is no real use to the rock it plagues every player and burdens their useful slottage. Your first instinct is to build with it because after all why not you have all this useless material might as well find a use for it. Soon you realize it just makes everything ugly and you want to replace it with something cooler any way. Cooking your stone makes a delightful looking hard smooth block that is much much better than icky cobblestone but unless you have the patience of a saint you get bored of waiting for it too cook in about 17 seconds.

So why not just throw it on the ground and leave it there you ask? Well that shit hangs around for an annoyingly long time waiting for you to accidently walk over it where it will be picked up automatically and the whole problem just started over.

I have to credit Mike with the cleanest solution. You make a little square pool of lava and throw all your wast in there since the lava will destroy it. This option is by far the best and unless your an idiot you wont accidentally fall in the lava and kill your self loosing all your good items you wanted to keep.... Ok maybe you will do that about 43 times but just consider it a learning curve. You didn't need that near indestructible diamond pick anyway. You can always get a new one. I mean you find new ones almost NEVER. Enough of my clumsy minecraft accideaths back to the matter at hand which is my giant bagfull of rocks.

So I was preparing to go back to base to destroy all my hard earned uselessness when it dawned on me. Why not go back to your first instinct. Why not go old school. Why not get in touch with your inner child. Why not try to consciously tap into hive mind. I guess that last idea has nothing to do with my rocks,or the idea before it for that matter.

Why don't I build with these rocks.

Build something just to use all the rocks. Something GIANT. Something where the sheer enormity of it will counteract the ugliness of the blocks. Why doesn't this Pharaoh just go build himself something worth of his magnificence.

I'M THAT PHARAOH AND I DEMAND A PYRAMID.

It's just too bad that for me to actually demand a pyramid I would be talking to myself alone at 2am. I did build it though I started with a base of 40x40 and dug a trench 2 blocks deep around it so those fucking zombies wouldn't run up the side and bum rush me when I wasn't paying attention.

I'm a genius I would dig untill i filled up my inventory then just warp to the pyramid and lay the bricks down and repeat. For five hours straight. In the end I had a fancy dancy new giant sun shaft and a sweet new pyramid good enough for a king.

Sad thing is a king isn't the same as a pharaoh. It's pretty damn great but not as great. Just like my pyramid. I mean its awesome and it's pretty big. It's just not stupid big.

So i started a new pyramid beside the old one. My new pyramid would be bigger, much bigger and floating because floating pyramids are bad ass.

My second pyramid started on a 70x70 base which if you do the math is a fuck of a lot bigger and taller and much more magnificent. I can barely see from one end to the other, PERFECT.

Although it is so big that I got fed up with trying to build a floor and opted for an open design.

Minecraft a big, big BIG FUCKING CIRCLE

Since i got back into minecraft about three weeks ago I have been doing mostly one thing digging and adding onto my main tunnel and bases. Actually bases which are now all connected because I went in one giant magnificent glorious circle.

You might remember I started a floating base when I got back into the minecraft three weeks ago. Shortly there after I got bored of transporting back and forth between there and the ground for raw materials so I started of on a digging journey.

I basically went below my floating base dug down then went ever deeper at a forty five degree angle. I hit the bottom unbreakable blocks without ever punching through a natural cave. If you don't know what I mean by unbreakable blocks and punching through a cave then you've probably never played minecraft and are probably not even reading this anymore sooooo never mind.

In my frustration with not hitting a natural cave I developed that bad OCD trait of digging dirt I mentioned in a previous post. Basically if I find dirt or gravel while I'm mining I feel compelled to dig it all out. This is actually how I made my main underground base.

There were pockets of said dirt and gravel touching and when i dug them out there was a giant room left over. I cleaned it up made it square fashioned a swimming pool threw a thousand torches on the wall and viola mi casa.

The most insidious thing about Minecraft is the endless freedom without specific goals. Since minecraft is just so fucking fun to play you invent for yourself goals. IE you make a base and then you make your base bigger and then you make it bigger still and then you dig a tunnel to find special materials to help make your base awesome. then you realize your tunnel is too long so you make another base. Then you need more wood but you get sick of going to the surface and getting shot by skeletons and blown up by creepers so you wisely decide on making underground trees. Then you need natural light so you dig a pillar tunnel straight up to the surface so sunshine makes it's way all the way down to your base to grow trees. Then you really start fucking around.

You start to mess around with lava and water and if your mike you burn the world down and then make a whole new one. If your me you just accidentally fall in your own pit of lava and loose all your good shit so you have to go digging again. Then you get in a digging mode. You abandon your base for a while then you just dig for diggings sake.

Then you keep getting lost in your your random directional digs. Then if your like me you need to make your main tunnel distinguished from all the twisting tentacle off shoots of that main tunnel. This is where I developed a sort of bread crumb based path system. I make my tunnels at least three blocks wide and the middle of the floor i put a dirt path. I used to use sand so you would know it was not a natural dirt patch but going over water and lava nixed that system because your path just falls and burns or gets in the water and screws up the flow.

I'm getting close to the circle thing don't worry.

In all this digging I found a natural waterfall with 3 separate water falls in a large cavern. Being a nerdy minecraft player with a non-exist ant social life I got really excited and realized this would make a perfect centerpiece for yet another new base. This base is just a basic way station though I don't want to put all the effort into another super base and feel guilty for abandoning yet another one in my wake. We can discuss my frightening need to personify holes in the ground as having feelings some other time.

I decided to make my glorious find more accessible I would dig a spiral staircase around the edge of the cavern and in behind the water falls so you could travel up the cavern and take in the view. I made a glass floor every so often so you could go out and really enjoy the ball tingling height of the cavern. Once I got to the top I was satisfied with my accomplishment and set to go fuck around some more.

After a while of experimenting with dynamite, and by experimenting I mostly mean blowing myself up, I decided to go back to waterfalls.

I thought to myself that since there was glass floors all the way down why not dig up to the surface so light could travel all the way down the cavern. So I did I was surprisingly close to the surface which was handy because making a sun shaft is a real douche and takes forever.

Low and behold I was UNDERNEATH MY FLOATING BASE. Yeah remember that guy from three weeks ago that I abandoned and felt bad about WELL HERE IT WAS just like an ex-girlfriend you've forgotten about how crazy she was but remember how good the sex was. Not to say I was going to have sex with my old base. Even if it was possible... OK maybe but it's impossible so lets move on.

I just want to re-establish how much distance I had covered underground to magically end up in the same place. 2.5 weeks of fucking around digging this way then that. There's literally miles of cave down there.

So after I broke through the surface I decided to continue the spiral staircase upwards to floating base. Now everything is attached in a giant circle now all my abandonment guilt is gone. Most excitingly though now i get to go fuck around and figure what else to do.